


Through Fire and Snow

by SassyEuclid



Category: RWBY
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-16
Updated: 2016-11-16
Packaged: 2018-08-31 07:38:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,373
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8569948
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SassyEuclid/pseuds/SassyEuclid
Summary: Backstory and exploration of Nora and Ren's characters and relationships, with some Arkos involved as well.





	1. Fire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nora's childhood backstory, introducing her as a character

Nora was short. Like, really short. Which sometimes was a disadvantage, but when she was five it was very much not. Because when the roof fell in suddenly and there was just a small space for her to escape through, she didn’t hesitate except to call out to her dad. When she received no response, she dived through the hole underneath the beam to desperately look for him. She crawled and ran around what was left of her burning house, until she saw her father’s hand gripping his handkerchief sticking out from underneath a wall. His hand was not the pale white that matched hers, but dark red from the blood and burns. She couldn’t save him, so through the smoke she ran out of the house, stealing her father’s pink handkerchief from his scarred hand.  
She looked back at the burning house as it crumbled in. Why it was burning she didn’t know, but she became overwhelmed with smoke, and it made it’s way into her lungs and into her eyes, blinding her and throwing her to the ground with coughing fits. Fire blazed around her as she was down on the ground, seemingly trapping her. She made it out of the house, but it still looked like this was the end of her short little life. Her vision blurred and she became overwhelmed with the smoke, blacking out shortly after seeing red eyes glow in the darkness around her.

She woke up in a grey room to the faces of concerned adults. They looked tired, but almost every one of them held a weapon of some kind. One man in particular held not only a weapon, but a small metal flask. He was the first to speak to her.  
“How’re you doing, kiddo?” His voice was rough and sounded like the smoke that had previously filled Nora’s lungs  
Her voice seemed small in comparison to his. “Where am I?”  
“Well, right now you’re in a hospital outside of Vacuo.”  
“What happened?”  
“Well, you were attacked by a fairly large Ursa after your house burned down, champ.”  
“...where’s my dad?” She found tucked into her hand the handkerchief she had taken from his hand. There was blood on it.  
“He didn’t make it out.”  
“Oh…”  
“Hey, there’s another kid here from your village. After the fire, I think he escaped from there too. By the way, what’s your name, kiddo?”  
“Nora.”  
“Alright, well, I think you should meet this kid. I think you two will get along.”  
“Why?” she asked as she got off the bed and jumped onto the floor next to the the man.  
“Because you guys are the only two kids in this entire hospital,” he snickered.  
“Wait, mister, what’s your name?”  
“I’m Qrow.” As they walked down the hall, her head barely above his knee, she reached up and grabbed his hand. He jumped, surprised at the gesture, but let her keep holding it. After all, her dad just died and her home was destroyed. 


	2. Lie Ren

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nora meets Ren

Qrow and Nora came into a small room with a bookshelf and a teddy-bear. There were a couple child-sized chairs and a table with crayons and paper too. A small window was on the far wall, looking out onto the dark forest surrounding them. There was but one person in the room, a little boy wearing green pajamas and reading a book, his black hair shielding his face.   
“Well, that’s the guy,” Qrow pointed.  
“Why is he so quiet?”  
“Why do you talk so much?” he countered. She shrugged and let go of his hand to go talk to the boy. Qrow watched a second, then left the room.  
“I like your pajamas!” she said. The boy looked up at her, trying to process the child in front of him.  
“...what?”  
“Your pajamas. I like them. I like green.”  
“But you’re wearing pink.” She looked down at her pink dress in which she had lived in for days on end.  
“It’s my dad’s favorite color and he bought it for me.”  
“Oh.” He returned his attention to the book.  
“So….. what’s your name?”  
“Lie Ren. And you?”  
“I’m Nora! Nora Valkerie!”  
“Hm.”  
“So how old are you?”  
“I turned five not too long ago.”  
“Really? Me too!”  
“Cool.”  
“So, where are your parents?”  
“Dead, presumably. That attack caused my house to cave in. A woman in white came and scooped me from the rubble and brought me here. I’ve been reading this book since.”  
“Oh…”  
“What about you?” He realized he wouldn’t get much reading done while Nora stayed here, so he set the book on the table near by.  
“They said my dad didn’t make it out of the house. I think I saw him before I got out of the house. I took this from him.” She produced the handkerchief to show it proudly to him. She looked at it for a second, seeing the beautiful lightning bolt embroidered in black thread that clearly marked it as her father’s. The bolt’s black was crusty with his blood, and suddenly her bubbly voice faded into a stoic quiet. Ren seemed confused at her sudden silence, but his eyes followed her gaze to the bloodstains and suddenly he understood. Nora continued to stare and then suddenly she started crying. She fell to the ground and sobbed into the tattered fabric. Ren watched, and he thought of his mother screaming from the bathroom on the top floor of the house as everything burned around him.   
Ren jumped up from his chair and put his arms around Nora. Her body tensed at the sudden touch, but eventually she relaxed and returned his hug. The two children sat in the middle of the room, hugging and crying like two friends, despite just meeting each other minutes ago. But that’s what they were going to become. Friends.


	3. Training

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The start of their training as hunters

Nora and Ren had been living alone together for ten years. They traveled from village to village in Vacuo, finding menial jobs for money to buy food. Eventually they grew tired of the life they were living, sick of being saved by hunters and huntresses on their journeys.  
“Ren?”  
“Yes, Nora?”  
“What are we gonna do?”  
“What do you mean?”  
“I mean, with the rest of our lives? We can’t keep on being saved. I mean, we have to grow up at some point. This isn’t how I want to live my life. Our town was destroyed by Grimm, isn’t it only fair that we fight back?”  
“What are you saying, Nora?”  
“Well, what if we became hunters?”  
“How on earth would we do that Nora? We have no training. We don’t have weapons. We don’t have a way to do it, Nora.”  
“Nonsense, Ren. I’m strong, you’re smart, we can do anything.”  
And so they traveled and found a retired hunter to train them. Later they forged their own weapons with the help of a blacksmith from Vale, and they met more masters, determined to make them train the two fifteen year olds. Nora, surprisingly, excelled faster than Ren, despite Ren’s wit. Her strength and natural disposition to fighting lead to her quickly discovering her skills, her aura, and her semblance. As an homage to her father, she forged a hammer, naming it Magnhild. And unsurprisingly, she discovers his semblance to be connected to energy, similar to that of her father.  
Ren, on the other hand, did not know how to go about crafting a weapon for himself. Frankly, he had no idea what he even wanted to get out of fighting. All he knew was that he needed to be at Nora’s side, no matter what. He had grown more than fond of her, and indeed loved her as his best friend, and his only friend. These two had been against the world for ten years, and he knew that he had to stay with her. So if this was her path, he would follow. He took his time deciding on a weapon for himself, finally settling on pistols with blades attached. Something that was elegant yet effective. Names were something he did not find easy, so he settled on StormFlower, simple like his weapon.   
They together applied to Beacon Academy, and that is where their journey began.


End file.
